Robert Barnard

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Robert Barnard, British mystery writer (born Nov. 23, 1936, Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex, Eng.—died Sept. 19, 2013, Leeds, Eng.), penned more than 40 novels and numerous short stories, the majority of them in the so-called cozy traditional genre of detective fiction most often associated with Agatha Christie. Unlike most mystery writers, however, he also introduced an unusual amount of wit and social satire into his “deliberately old-fashioned” stories. Barnard graduated (1959) from Balliol College, Oxford, and taught at the University of New England in Armidale, N.S.W., Australia, and in Norway at both the University of Bergen (1966–76), where he completed his Ph.D., and Tromsø University (1976–83). After the publication of his first novel, Death of an Old Goat (1974), he continued teaching full time; he did not retire to England until 1984, when he had several moderately successful novels behind him. Barnard also published novels under the pen name Bernard Bastable (featuring the amateur sleuthing skills of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart), as well as nonfiction works on Christie, Charles Dickens, and the Brontë sisters. Barnard in 2003 was granted the Crime Writers Association’s Diamond Dagger lifetime achievement award. His final novel, A Charitable Body, was published in 2012.